"Happy Birthday, North Korea!" by Norbert Vollertsen
Here's something I found interesting...
Happy Birthday, North Korea!
BY NORBERT VOLLERTSEN
Sunday, Sept.7, 2003
On Sept. 9, 2003, the 55th anniversary of the founding
of DPRK, Democratic People`s Republic of Korea, North
Korea`s official name, there will be held a mass
military parade in Pyongyang and North Korea is
expected to display missiles and other modern weapons
during its first large-scale military parade in more
than a decade, maybe even declare itself a nuclear
power.
On Oct. 7, 1989, the 40th anniversary of the founding
of another communist state, GDR, German Democratic
Republic, East-Germany`s official name, the government
of Mr. Honecker held a mass military parade in
East-Berlin.
On Nov.9, 1989, not even 40 days later the former
East-German state was gone, the Berlin Wall was open
and the country on it`s way to reunification.
Also on Oct.7,1989, Michael Gorbatchev gave a speech
and he told the East German leadership that, regarding
the Helsinki-agreement they have to change, to open up
not only economically in order to be "not to late in
history and not to be punished by life".
Nearly exactly this was the message, according to
Western media, which the Chinese president quite
recently sent to North Korea`s "Dear Leader" Kim
Jong-IL.
In the case of East-Germany Hungary opened its border
for the East-German refugees which finally led to the
collapse of the regime. In the case of North Korea we
will strengthen our efforts to create more pressure on
the government in Beijing by storming more Western
institutions with North Korean refugees so that
finally China will be forced to open its border - even
maybe only by "accident" like in Germany - and in this
way become the "Hungary of the Far-East".
We are waiting now for Nov. 3, 2003 ,exactly 55 days
after the 55th anniversary of the founding of the
North`s communist regime - Happy birthday, North
Korea!
There are many western scholars in the international
community nowadays talking about some sort of security
guarantee for North Korea. Maybe they shall ask the
North Korean refugees who lived there. Many of them
had spent years in concentration camps and spoke of
mass executions, torture, rape, murder, baby-killing,
biological experiments where human beings are used
like guinea-pigs and other crimes against humanity and
they will have a certain opinion about any security
guarantee for a genocidal regime.
North Korea's starvation is not the result of natural
disasters. The calamity is man-made. "There is only
one natural disaster in North Korea" as one of my
North Korean minders told me secretly during my
one-and-a-half year staying in Pyongyang : "And that`s
Kim Jong-IL".
Only the regime's overthrow will end it.
Human rights are nonexistent in North Korea. Peasants,
slaves to the regime, lead lives of utter destitution.
It is as if a basic right to exist--to be--is denied.
Ordinary people starve and die. They are detained at
the caprice of the regime. Forced labor is the basic
way in which "order" is maintained.
The children in North Korea were emaciated, stunted,
mute,emotionally depleted. In the hospitals one sees
kids too small for their age, with hollow eyes
and skin stretched tight across their faces. They
wear blue-and-white striped pajamas, like the children
in Hitler's Auschwitz. They are so malnourished, so
drained of resistance, that a flu can kill them. They
can`t laugh any more, they can`t cry anymore. They are
just sad and they can`t help themselves. They are
waiting for the international community to do
something.
In North Korea, a repressive apparatus uncoils
whenever there is criticism. The suffocation, by
surveillance, shadowing, wiretapping and mail
interception, is total. Most patients in hospitals
suffer from psychosomatic illnesses, worn out by
compulsory drills to become "beautiful cheerleaders in
South Korea", innumerable parades, "patriotic"
assemblies at six in the morning and droning
propaganda. They are toil worn, prostrate, at the
end of their tether. Clinical depression is rampant.
Alcoholism is common because of mindnumbing
rigidities, regimentation and hopelessness. In
patients' eyes I saw no life, only lassitude and a
constant fear.
There are two worlds in North Korea, one for the
senior military and the elite; and a living hell for
the rest. I didn't see any improvement in the
availability of food and medicine in any of the
hospitals I worked in during my entire stay. One can
only imagine what conditions are like in the "reform
institutions," where whole families are imprisoned
when any one member does or says something that
offends the regime - reading the bible, listening to
western broadcasting or any contact to foreigners.
My initial naivete acute; that the starvation was the
result of weather conditions disappeared when I saw
that much of the food aid was being denied those who
needed it most. Before my German aid organisation Cap
Anamur came to North Korea, other agencies such as
Oxfam and CARE pulled out because they weren't
allowed to distribute aid directly to the people.
They had to turn it over to the authorities, who took
complete charge of distribution. Monitoring is
impossible. Nobody really knows where the aid is
going, except that it is not going to the starving
citizens.
I realized that even worse in North Korea Kim Jong-IL
is systamatically starving his own people, trying to
simply eliminate his own opposition. The North Korean
dictator uses food as a weapon against his own people,
keeping them weak and dependent on the state. Kim
Jong-IL is comitting genocide in North Korea and the
international community is seriously discussing a
certain security guarantee !
The system's beneficiaries are members of the
Communist Party and high-ranking military personnel.
In Pyongyang, these people enjoy a comfortable
lifestyle--obscene in the context--with fancy
restaurants and nightclubs. In diplomatic shops, they
can buy such delicacies as Argentine steak, with which
they supplement their supplies of food diverted from
humanitarian aid. In the countryside, starving
people, bypassed by the aid intended for them, forage
for food.
Pyongyang is fooling the world - and during my early
days in North Korea I got a painful lesson on my own
how easy it is to fool us. I am a physician,
humanitaren aid worker and I tried to engage, to open
up the country. I really acted like a "sunshine-
politician", political correct, not offending,
friendly mannered, even gave my own skin. And I was
cheated. The North Koreans immideately took advantage
of my naivete. I behaved like a little child and I was
treated like a little child. The North Korean
leadership will never respect weakness. Unfortunately
they will only understand their only language : The
language of power.
Therefor Kim Jong-IL is blackmailing the whole world :
"Feed me or I will kill you with my nuclear weapons".
He will never abandon these weapons, his only real
"security guarantee". The only way to get rid of the
nukes is to get rid of Kim Jong-IL and the best way to
do that in a peaceful way is by creating an inner
collapse of the North Korean regime started by a flood
of refugees - just as in former East Germany.
As a German I know too well the guilt of my
grandparents' generation for its silence under the
Nazis. But as a German I also know about Neville
Chamberlain`s appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany,
how badly it failed and how disastrous were its
consequences. According to Winston Churchill, "an
appeaser is a guy who throws his friend to the
alligator in hopes that the alligator will eat him
last ".
Only pressure on North Korea can save lives. The
ordinary people in North Korea can't help themselves.
They are brainwashed, do not know nothing about the
outside world and are too afraid to be able to
overthrow their rulers.
As a German who witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall
I understand the destabilizing impact an exodus of
refugees can have on totalitarian regimes. Therefor we
will continue our efforts to inform the North Korean
people and try to create an mass-exodus.
In order to achieve this flood of refugees we first of
all have to inform the ordinary North Korean people
about this outside world. Because they do not have any
access to foreign media they do not know anything
about Western societies. They are brainwashed into
believing that we are all homeless, drug-addicted and
depraved.
Because of all this excisting non- and misinformation
there are no uprisings like those in former East
European countries and no defections on a mass scale.
That is why our project to send radios by balloon to
North Korea is so potent - and why friends of Kim
Jong-IL in South Korea are determined to foil us.
Seoul is proving to be the real external obstacle to
freedom for North Korea. Many people in foreign
countries wonder about the general South Korean
attitude toward Pyongyang, the increasing
anti-Americanism here, and the perverse likelihood of
pro North Korean diplomacy by Seoul during the
six-party talks and the whole nuclear discussion.
Some even call this - among the discussion about
secret money from Seoul to Pyongyang,
cash-for-summit-scandals and bribery in the South
Korean government - not "sunshine-policy" anymore but
"friendship-policy" -conspiracy with mass-murders.
The truth is, South Korea is infiltrated by Pyongyang
agents. In reference to Watergate this is "Seoulgate"
-on a much bigger scale. According to the NIS, the
South Korean intelligence, there are up to 6000 secret
agents from North Korea operating in South Korea`s
establishment; and the main targets, besides the
government (as a German I also know very well about
the chief adviser of former German chancelor Willy
Brandt -a spy from former East Germany), are the NIS
itself, the military, the students organizations, the
workers unions - and the media.
Kim Jong-IL knows very well about the power of media
and therefor he tries to shut it down in his own
country and tries to manipulate it in the outside
western world - with assistance of "political correct"
journalists worldwide who are looking for the truth
when Pyongyang is creating it`s own spin.
Silence is killing - not only in North Korea.
We stongly believe in the power of information - that
by sending radios, encouraging refugees and informing
the world about North Korea we can open up this
"hermit kingdom". Maybe the first time in history we
can proof that with the power of media, the internet
and stunning TV-images we can even overthrew a
dictatorship - simply by exposure.
Not with an army of soldiers but an "army of
journalists" we have to counterattack Kim Jong-IL :
"Write him down !"
The irony of all this would be that Kim Jong-IL, the
worldchampion of manipulation will be defeated by his
own weapons : Propaganda,spin, media, newspapers, TV
and even Hollywood.
To my consternation all the talks about North Korea
are only focusing on nukes and security guarantees for
this regime. But the evil regime of Kim Jong-IL with
all its human right violations is the real cause of
all the military problems and therefor we have to talk
about these human right violations in North Korea.
Kim Jong-IL has to fight for survival like the leader
of a religious cult because he can never change and
open up his country - there are too many dirty secrets
and he knows very well about the anger among his
people. More and more high-ranking defectors have told
us that Kim Jong-IL`s government is in a desparate
situation, much closer to collapse than the outside
world knows. This, they say, is why he needs the fear
of nuclear annihilation to win concessions from the
West, prop up his regime, and subjugate his own
people.
There is only one security guarantee for the starving
children in North Korea : When there is no more
security for Kim Jong-IL and his evil regime !
And there should be no security guarantee for any
dictator on earth - that should be the real message
from the international community to all the leaders of
the world in the 21 st century !
For the latest information about human rights
violations in North Korea please look for :
www.chosunjournal.com
Norbert Vollertsen
Seoul
Sept. 7, 2003
Happy Birthday, North Korea!
BY NORBERT VOLLERTSEN
Sunday, Sept.7, 2003
On Sept. 9, 2003, the 55th anniversary of the founding
of DPRK, Democratic People`s Republic of Korea, North
Korea`s official name, there will be held a mass
military parade in Pyongyang and North Korea is
expected to display missiles and other modern weapons
during its first large-scale military parade in more
than a decade, maybe even declare itself a nuclear
power.
On Oct. 7, 1989, the 40th anniversary of the founding
of another communist state, GDR, German Democratic
Republic, East-Germany`s official name, the government
of Mr. Honecker held a mass military parade in
East-Berlin.
On Nov.9, 1989, not even 40 days later the former
East-German state was gone, the Berlin Wall was open
and the country on it`s way to reunification.
Also on Oct.7,1989, Michael Gorbatchev gave a speech
and he told the East German leadership that, regarding
the Helsinki-agreement they have to change, to open up
not only economically in order to be "not to late in
history and not to be punished by life".
Nearly exactly this was the message, according to
Western media, which the Chinese president quite
recently sent to North Korea`s "Dear Leader" Kim
Jong-IL.
In the case of East-Germany Hungary opened its border
for the East-German refugees which finally led to the
collapse of the regime. In the case of North Korea we
will strengthen our efforts to create more pressure on
the government in Beijing by storming more Western
institutions with North Korean refugees so that
finally China will be forced to open its border - even
maybe only by "accident" like in Germany - and in this
way become the "Hungary of the Far-East".
We are waiting now for Nov. 3, 2003 ,exactly 55 days
after the 55th anniversary of the founding of the
North`s communist regime - Happy birthday, North
Korea!
There are many western scholars in the international
community nowadays talking about some sort of security
guarantee for North Korea. Maybe they shall ask the
North Korean refugees who lived there. Many of them
had spent years in concentration camps and spoke of
mass executions, torture, rape, murder, baby-killing,
biological experiments where human beings are used
like guinea-pigs and other crimes against humanity and
they will have a certain opinion about any security
guarantee for a genocidal regime.
North Korea's starvation is not the result of natural
disasters. The calamity is man-made. "There is only
one natural disaster in North Korea" as one of my
North Korean minders told me secretly during my
one-and-a-half year staying in Pyongyang : "And that`s
Kim Jong-IL".
Only the regime's overthrow will end it.
Human rights are nonexistent in North Korea. Peasants,
slaves to the regime, lead lives of utter destitution.
It is as if a basic right to exist--to be--is denied.
Ordinary people starve and die. They are detained at
the caprice of the regime. Forced labor is the basic
way in which "order" is maintained.
The children in North Korea were emaciated, stunted,
mute,emotionally depleted. In the hospitals one sees
kids too small for their age, with hollow eyes
and skin stretched tight across their faces. They
wear blue-and-white striped pajamas, like the children
in Hitler's Auschwitz. They are so malnourished, so
drained of resistance, that a flu can kill them. They
can`t laugh any more, they can`t cry anymore. They are
just sad and they can`t help themselves. They are
waiting for the international community to do
something.
In North Korea, a repressive apparatus uncoils
whenever there is criticism. The suffocation, by
surveillance, shadowing, wiretapping and mail
interception, is total. Most patients in hospitals
suffer from psychosomatic illnesses, worn out by
compulsory drills to become "beautiful cheerleaders in
South Korea", innumerable parades, "patriotic"
assemblies at six in the morning and droning
propaganda. They are toil worn, prostrate, at the
end of their tether. Clinical depression is rampant.
Alcoholism is common because of mindnumbing
rigidities, regimentation and hopelessness. In
patients' eyes I saw no life, only lassitude and a
constant fear.
There are two worlds in North Korea, one for the
senior military and the elite; and a living hell for
the rest. I didn't see any improvement in the
availability of food and medicine in any of the
hospitals I worked in during my entire stay. One can
only imagine what conditions are like in the "reform
institutions," where whole families are imprisoned
when any one member does or says something that
offends the regime - reading the bible, listening to
western broadcasting or any contact to foreigners.
My initial naivete acute; that the starvation was the
result of weather conditions disappeared when I saw
that much of the food aid was being denied those who
needed it most. Before my German aid organisation Cap
Anamur came to North Korea, other agencies such as
Oxfam and CARE pulled out because they weren't
allowed to distribute aid directly to the people.
They had to turn it over to the authorities, who took
complete charge of distribution. Monitoring is
impossible. Nobody really knows where the aid is
going, except that it is not going to the starving
citizens.
I realized that even worse in North Korea Kim Jong-IL
is systamatically starving his own people, trying to
simply eliminate his own opposition. The North Korean
dictator uses food as a weapon against his own people,
keeping them weak and dependent on the state. Kim
Jong-IL is comitting genocide in North Korea and the
international community is seriously discussing a
certain security guarantee !
The system's beneficiaries are members of the
Communist Party and high-ranking military personnel.
In Pyongyang, these people enjoy a comfortable
lifestyle--obscene in the context--with fancy
restaurants and nightclubs. In diplomatic shops, they
can buy such delicacies as Argentine steak, with which
they supplement their supplies of food diverted from
humanitarian aid. In the countryside, starving
people, bypassed by the aid intended for them, forage
for food.
Pyongyang is fooling the world - and during my early
days in North Korea I got a painful lesson on my own
how easy it is to fool us. I am a physician,
humanitaren aid worker and I tried to engage, to open
up the country. I really acted like a "sunshine-
politician", political correct, not offending,
friendly mannered, even gave my own skin. And I was
cheated. The North Koreans immideately took advantage
of my naivete. I behaved like a little child and I was
treated like a little child. The North Korean
leadership will never respect weakness. Unfortunately
they will only understand their only language : The
language of power.
Therefor Kim Jong-IL is blackmailing the whole world :
"Feed me or I will kill you with my nuclear weapons".
He will never abandon these weapons, his only real
"security guarantee". The only way to get rid of the
nukes is to get rid of Kim Jong-IL and the best way to
do that in a peaceful way is by creating an inner
collapse of the North Korean regime started by a flood
of refugees - just as in former East Germany.
As a German I know too well the guilt of my
grandparents' generation for its silence under the
Nazis. But as a German I also know about Neville
Chamberlain`s appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany,
how badly it failed and how disastrous were its
consequences. According to Winston Churchill, "an
appeaser is a guy who throws his friend to the
alligator in hopes that the alligator will eat him
last ".
Only pressure on North Korea can save lives. The
ordinary people in North Korea can't help themselves.
They are brainwashed, do not know nothing about the
outside world and are too afraid to be able to
overthrow their rulers.
As a German who witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall
I understand the destabilizing impact an exodus of
refugees can have on totalitarian regimes. Therefor we
will continue our efforts to inform the North Korean
people and try to create an mass-exodus.
In order to achieve this flood of refugees we first of
all have to inform the ordinary North Korean people
about this outside world. Because they do not have any
access to foreign media they do not know anything
about Western societies. They are brainwashed into
believing that we are all homeless, drug-addicted and
depraved.
Because of all this excisting non- and misinformation
there are no uprisings like those in former East
European countries and no defections on a mass scale.
That is why our project to send radios by balloon to
North Korea is so potent - and why friends of Kim
Jong-IL in South Korea are determined to foil us.
Seoul is proving to be the real external obstacle to
freedom for North Korea. Many people in foreign
countries wonder about the general South Korean
attitude toward Pyongyang, the increasing
anti-Americanism here, and the perverse likelihood of
pro North Korean diplomacy by Seoul during the
six-party talks and the whole nuclear discussion.
Some even call this - among the discussion about
secret money from Seoul to Pyongyang,
cash-for-summit-scandals and bribery in the South
Korean government - not "sunshine-policy" anymore but
"friendship-policy" -conspiracy with mass-murders.
The truth is, South Korea is infiltrated by Pyongyang
agents. In reference to Watergate this is "Seoulgate"
-on a much bigger scale. According to the NIS, the
South Korean intelligence, there are up to 6000 secret
agents from North Korea operating in South Korea`s
establishment; and the main targets, besides the
government (as a German I also know very well about
the chief adviser of former German chancelor Willy
Brandt -a spy from former East Germany), are the NIS
itself, the military, the students organizations, the
workers unions - and the media.
Kim Jong-IL knows very well about the power of media
and therefor he tries to shut it down in his own
country and tries to manipulate it in the outside
western world - with assistance of "political correct"
journalists worldwide who are looking for the truth
when Pyongyang is creating it`s own spin.
Silence is killing - not only in North Korea.
We stongly believe in the power of information - that
by sending radios, encouraging refugees and informing
the world about North Korea we can open up this
"hermit kingdom". Maybe the first time in history we
can proof that with the power of media, the internet
and stunning TV-images we can even overthrew a
dictatorship - simply by exposure.
Not with an army of soldiers but an "army of
journalists" we have to counterattack Kim Jong-IL :
"Write him down !"
The irony of all this would be that Kim Jong-IL, the
worldchampion of manipulation will be defeated by his
own weapons : Propaganda,spin, media, newspapers, TV
and even Hollywood.
To my consternation all the talks about North Korea
are only focusing on nukes and security guarantees for
this regime. But the evil regime of Kim Jong-IL with
all its human right violations is the real cause of
all the military problems and therefor we have to talk
about these human right violations in North Korea.
Kim Jong-IL has to fight for survival like the leader
of a religious cult because he can never change and
open up his country - there are too many dirty secrets
and he knows very well about the anger among his
people. More and more high-ranking defectors have told
us that Kim Jong-IL`s government is in a desparate
situation, much closer to collapse than the outside
world knows. This, they say, is why he needs the fear
of nuclear annihilation to win concessions from the
West, prop up his regime, and subjugate his own
people.
There is only one security guarantee for the starving
children in North Korea : When there is no more
security for Kim Jong-IL and his evil regime !
And there should be no security guarantee for any
dictator on earth - that should be the real message
from the international community to all the leaders of
the world in the 21 st century !
For the latest information about human rights
violations in North Korea please look for :
www.chosunjournal.com
Norbert Vollertsen
Seoul
Sept. 7, 2003